Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
Ari Feldman
By Ari Feldman
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News Despite social distancing rules, crowd shows up for Brooklyn rabbi’s funeral
At least 100 people gathered Friday outside of the the Chabad Lubavitch’s headquarters in Brooklyn to pay their respects to a rabbi who passed away earlier in the day. Rabbi Aharon Yaacov Schwei, 86, was a prominent figure in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Jewish community and held many top roles within the Chabad organization. Despite…
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News Orthodox Jews are donating plasma by the thousands to fight COVID-19
Read this article in Yiddish Well before the rest of the world was talking about blood plasma and its use in fighting coronavirus, Dr. Shmuel Shoham knew all about it — and where he could probably get a lot of it. By early March, Shoham, an expert on infectious diseases in transplant patients at Johns…
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Fast Forward Study casts doubt on efficacy of malaria drug touted by Trump, Hasidic doctor
An anti-malaria drug touted by both President Trump and a Hasidic doctor in upstate New York as an important tool in the fight against coronavirus was found in a new study to offer no benefit to hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The study, with 368 patients, is the largest done so far on the drug, hydroxychloroquine. The…
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News Scuffle disrupts compromise with police at Chabad headquarters around prayer, social distancing
A gathering of young men in front of the Chabad movement’s Brooklyn headquarters led to a scuffle with police, who have been permitting prayer services there for a month despite the ban on gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic. The incident highlighted the attempts by law enforcement to balance the devout community’s spiritual needs with safety…
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Fast Forward Monsey stabber’s lawyer wants to autopsy victim despite religious prohibitions
The attorney representing the man who stabbed multiple people in Monsey, N.Y. at a December 28 Hanukkah celebration wants to exhume and examine the body of Josef Neumann, who died while in a coma that resulted from being stabbed in the attack. Michael Sussman is representing Grafton Thomas, who has been charged with murder after…
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News Evangelical field hospital in Central Park spurs debate over soul of a synagogue
A prominent Reform synagogue in Manhattan found itself on the defensive over the weekend when some congregants protested its decision to highlight the Covid-19 response efforts of an evangelical Christian organization whose politics they abhor. The group, Samaritan’s Purse, has set up a field hospital in Central Park, and Central Synagogue featured the group in…
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Fast Forward Jews react with sadness to Bernie Sanders dropping out of the presidential race
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who pushed progressive issues and outlasted nearly all his political opponents on the strength of tremendous small-amount fundraising, has dropped out of the presidential race, clearing the field for former Vice President Joe Biden to serve as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Sanders’ campaign had a lively, and sometimes controversial,…
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Fast Forward Monsey’s rate of positive tests for coronavirus is nearly the highest in the country
Monsey, N.Y., a well-known Hasidic hub of 42,000 people in suburban Rockland County, has nearly the highest rate of positive tests for the coronavirus in the country. Though the number could be inflated due to high rates of testing, cultural factors, like large families, could also be making the town a hotspot for Covid-19. New…
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